[1][2] Zhou attained his MBA degree from University of Chicago Booth School of Business and had been working in the finance industry in recent years.

Due to his active engagement of the student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, Zhou was arrested and imprisoned for a year.

He left China in 1995 for the United States, where he studied analytic finance and accounting, and earned his MBA degree from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1998.

[8] In an interview with South China Morning Post, Zhou stated that he still believed the core issues being protested back in 1989 remain unresolved, such as government corruption.

[11] On the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Protests, as vigils in Hong Kong had been banned by authorities ostensibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Zhou said that Hongkongers "would need a lot of courage to deal with the enormous challenges coming their way" as they faced "Beijing's encroachment".

[12] On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the June Fourth crackdown, Zhou, now a US citizen, took advantage of China's policy of allowing 72-hour transit stops without a visa and managed to slip into the country briefly, even though Beijing took extreme measures to prevent public observances.

[9] While driving in a loop with his friend in Tiananmen Square, Zhou resisted his temptation to carry out a public protest, fearing that he would be quickly muzzled and "would be gone in a minute.

"[9] Zhou said he showed solidarity by paying a visit to his friend Gao Yu, a former reporter who wrote about the Tiananmen Protests and was jailed, alongside human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, at a detention center.

Hours later, LinkedIn reversed its decision and Zhou's profile was quickly restored on the Chinese platform after a wave of negative publicity.

[2] On June 1, 2020, Zoom closed Zhou's paid account a week after he held an event discussing the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.